Category Archives: Terrorism

Updated: Is the FBI Entrapping Idiots? (& No, Timothy McVeigh Was No Idiot)

Conspiracy, Fascism, Government, Law, Media, Terrorism

CNN reports that seven Miami-based men “concocted a plot to ‘kill all the devils we can,’ starting by blowing up Chicago’s Sears Tower, according to charges in a federal indictment revealed Friday.”

It transpires that this information was elicited by an “FBI operative posing as a member of the terrorist network.”

I watched the sister of one of the suspects enter “The Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer. The woman, bless her, was illiterate and probably borderline retarded. Let me tell you something: If American schools are producing the likes of this poor woman, homegrown retardation is more urgent a problem than homegrown terrorism.

Entrapment is equally worrisome. If the woman’s brother, also one of the accused, is as simple as she, then a wily and intelligent FBI agent could have a field day leading him on. The FBI is supposed to uncover existing plots, not help develop them by leading on a bunch of very simple, if unsavory, characters.

Rich Lowry has compared the hapless Miami bunch to Timothy McVeigh, who, according to Lowry, was also not very bright. This is a manifestly unperceptive observation. McVeigh was certainly intelligent. Read the interview he gave TIME and tell me it doesn’t reflect considerable intelligence. Read the interview the sister of the terror suspect gave Blitzer and tell me it doesn’t reflect extremely poor cognitive skills.

Compare this:

Asked by TIME magazine who were his favorite authors of political philosophy, McVeigh said:

“Patrick Henry, John Locke, of course many of the Founding Fathers: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Samuel Adams. I thought those men were, at the time they were extremely well-educated. They could talk us in circles these days, we wouldn’t know what they were talking about. I really respected their observations and analyses of history past.”

To this:

Asked by Blitzer about her terror-suspect brother, Marlene Phanor said:

“Actually, he’s, um, he was, he was working and he got into this group and they started going to church, trying to help the community. But the guy, the leader, I never know where he came from, who he was. Actually, my brother and them don’t even know where he come from. But he came positive for them. He came to them where he can help them and help the community and humble their minds and humble their souls and everything.”

Morality aside, a couple of IQ standard-deviation points separate these two. To compare McVeigh’s intelligence to the likes of Phanor is a little strained, to say the least.

Provided the sister doesn’t represent a genetic anomaly (and her accused brother and his associates are bright), I’ll repeat my contention: it would have been easy for the FBI to ensnare this group.

Hostage Hunt

Islam, Terrorism, War

It’s good to hear of the intensive search U.S. forces in Iraq are conducting for two missing American soldiers, “Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras.” The men are rumored to have been captured by insurgents.

“One of the most disgraceful displays of indifference to the sanctity of American life in Iraq occurred when insurgents captured Private First Class Keith Maupin in April, 2004. I had counted on being flooded with Breaking News about our military’s tireless efforts to retrieve him.

I was wrong.

I became obsessed with Maupin’s helpless young face. I couldn’t stop thinking about how frightened he must have been once he realized no one was bargaining for his life or coming to rescue him. In vain I turned to television and the Internet for news of him. But the media, taking its cues from the Bushies and the American people, let the leads grow cold. The next I heard, Maupin had been executed by his captors. This was in late June.”

Has there been a learning curve?

UPDATED (8/24/018): Taki: Not Very Bright

Anti-Semitism, Islam, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Neoconservatism, South-Africa, Terrorism, The West

In “From Russia With (Less Than) Love,” I asked—and answered—the question as to why Russia and Israel don’t cooperate more. For one, both nations live adjacent to terrorist entities—the Russians to Chechnya; the Israelis to the Palestinian Authority. Putin must put up with Shamil Basaev (a Chechen terrorist and advocate of an Islamist state in the Northern Caucasus); Israelis have to contend with the new Dalai Lamas of Gaza (Hamas).

And both Israelis and Russians “are hectored by elements in the Bush and Blair administrations and the Europeans about granting statehood to their terrorism-endorsing neighbors. Against insuperable odds, both are expected to trust terrorists and their fan base to stop butchering babies and embrace Jeffersonian democracy and a Bill of Rights.”

Note the consistency of my position: Assailed by savages, Russia and Israel have my sympathies and support on this front.

A year later, Taki, a moldy scribe, with life tenure in various publications, makes a similar point in The American Conservative (TAC). He is smarting over the administration’s double standard: “American policy makers” are “bear baiting” Russia about its mistreatment of Chechen jihadists, whom the administration (as I pointed out) lionizes. Chechens are freedom fighters, but the Palestinians are terrorists? What’s up with that, he wants to know.

This is rich because Taki’s writing is laced with exactly the same illogic:

In fawning, radical-left fashion, he and TAC finesse everything about the savage and dysfunctional Palestinian society, yet evince a loathing of all things Israel. Or, if a little honesty pierces the fog, and they acknowledge the facts on the ground, it is invariably to blame Israel, Ã la the left’s theory of culpability. Apparently, if not for Israel, a veritable economic oasis and a culture of life would flourish where a black hole now threatens to collapse upon itself.

Yes, this is rich because it exposes Taki’s inability to detect the same category of contradiction he rightly accuses the administration of in his and The American Conservative’s oeuvre.

That’s good for a laugh.

UPDATED (8/24/018): Praised by a cult.

 

Arab Universalism?

Islam, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Terrorism

The Boston Globe assures readers that “in the Arab world, Zarqawi tactics bred disgust.”

“If you are fighting foreigners, how come you kill 5,000 [Iraqi goons have killed multitudes more than that] or other innocent civilians and only a few Americans?” asks Bashar al-Akhras, whose “father was killed in the November 2005 suicide bombings of three Amman hotels, claimed by Zarqawi as retribution for Jordan’s support of US policy in the region.”

“His extended family,” Akhras relates, “consists of hard-working Palestinians who live across the Arab world and are bystanders in the war between Al Qaeda and the United States.”

So Akhras disagrees with the Mayor of London’s favorite “progressive” theologian, Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Qaradawi draws a sharp “moral distinction” between suicide bombings against ordinary Londoners (not good) and those against ordinary Israelis (perfectly good). He is not alone among Muslim ulama (scholars).

I’m eager to hear this lad extend his indignation and disgust to the slaughter by terrorists of all civilians—Jordanian, Iraqi, American, and Israeli.

It would be good too if the press avoided sweeping, unsubstantiated and unqualified generalizations.